Not Gone
by tearsofamiko
Summary: The feelings weren’t gone after all.
1. Ziva

Title: Not Gone

Author: Tearsofamiko

Rating: K

Disclaimer: I don't think that sexy DiNozzo or gorgeous Gibbs would submit well to being 'owned.' Yeah...I don't think that'd go over well at all...

Spoilers: _Cloak_

Summary: The feelings weren't gone after all.

A/N: Yeah, another tag to those now (in)famous closet and elevator scenes. ^^ Ah, but I needed some Tiva...BTW, the SecNav is one slimy SOB...grrrr....raise your hand if you agree. Yeah, I thought so.

* * *

She could hear her heart thundering in her ears in the sudden darkness, felt it pounding in her finger-tips. She was frozen for a moment, her breath rasping harshly as the adrenaline in the situation sped her body's functions. Furtively, she tried to watch the movements outside, tried to focus on their mission, but she was severely distracted.

"Stop breathing!" she hissed, and immediately the warm breaths against her ear ceased. She glanced at him, half-surprised at his immediate capitulation, but the shadows past the window drew her attention again.

As she watched the window, he shifted slightly, barely moved at all, but it was enough. Enough to completely break her focus, enough to completely capture her attention, enough to make her aware of exactly how close they were and how very appealing the warmth of his body was. She looked back at him, her eyes catching his in the muted glow from the hallway.

The air in their sanctuary thickened, time slowed to a trickle, and every nerve in her body fired to life. He was near enough for the warmth of his body to bleed into hers, washing through her in a sweet tidal wave that threatened to make her weak in the knees. She felt his slow, soft exhale wash across her face as he tried to breathe quietly and it carried a hint of him, a flavor she remembered – that she'd tried so hard to forget! – from their undercover stint as married assassins. As she felt his gaze caress her face, a sort of magnetism seemed to pull her forward, pulled her to him until they were almost touching, until her most secret desire was almost fulfilled.

It might've been, if McGee hadn't signaled in at that moment, breaking the spell. Feeling vague and ever so slightly off-kilter, she ran with him, navigating the corridors with semi-ease as they followed McGee's directions. The sudden alarm sent a new spike of adrenaline shooting through her. They ran faster now, simply trying to evade, but they didn't make it and she felt caged as the soldiers poured in behind them. The raised weapon and Gibbs' admonishment about real bullets triggered her training, threw her into motion as the fight erupted. She saw Tony go down and everything shorted out after that. She didn't remember the rest of the battle, but knew the exact moment darkness claimed her.

When he came to get her later, she was relieved beyond words, but the darkness she saw in his eyes was familiar and scary. She'd thought the pain of Jen and Jeanne's betrayal had dissipated, that time and space had weakened it. But it hadn't gone, was still here and stronger than ever. As they moved to follow Gibbs' commands and work on their case, she felt it grow, felt it change and morph, becoming full-blown anger needing a valve.

She didn't realize how bad it was until they were in the elevator.

As he spewed venom and abused the elevator buttons, she tried to disarm him, tried to diffuse the anger boiling so close to the surface. She tried, threw back at him as much stubbornness and ire as he threw at her, and the personal slam about her instinctive reaction during the war game wasn't entirely unexpected. It still hurt, though, mostly because she'd thought he was seriously injured, had been afraid for him –though she wouldn't admit it. She couldn't even explain it all to him, her voice catching in her throat as the image of his limp form sliding to the ground floated through her mind. She didn't realize until silence fell between them how close they'd moved.

As he stared at her, looked straight into her eyes and almost touched her soul, she saw something shift and felt the energy change in the room. His shuttered, shadowed green eyes lingered on her as he stood for a second, the air in the elevator growing heavier with the emotions they'd unleashed. She felt the same magnetic pull she had earlier, but the tension was different this time – darker, more lethal. She wondered what would be said next, knew it would carry some ethereal weight, might change what they had if the motives behind it were wrong.

"I'm tired of pretending," he said lowly, an exhausted sort of anger lacing his words.

"Me, too," she replied after a second, hoping he meant what she did, as her eyes dropped to his lips. She couldn't help herself, knew it was against all the rules – especially Gibbs' – but she wanted him, wanted to –

"It's dinner theatre for an audience of one," he ground out, the anger sparking in his eyes again as he turned away from her and left the elevator. "When's the curtain go down?"

She watched him go, her mind in an uproar. He was hurting, she knew, hating the lies and double-dealing they were being forced into. She understood that, knew why he felt the way he did. She had hoped, though...

It had been a year since his La Grenouille op went bust and Jeanne walked out of his life. She knew he'd invested so much – too much – into the games he was playing for Jenny, knew he'd been hurt by the ways the matter was dealt with. She knew he hadn't quite trusted Jenny after that, didn't trust Vance because of the power-play he'd made after Jen's funeral. She had hoped, though, that maybe the anger and bitterness, the guilt and sadness had dimmed over time.

This incident, though. . .

She guessed it was the proof she needed, the evidence that irrefutably said those feelings weren't gone. And she knew it was dangerous, that volatile cocktail of seething emotion; that was why she'd tried to move beyond the strange fascination she had with him, why she'd tried to make friends outside of NCIS during her time back in Israel.

It didn't work, though. Her feelings hadn't lessened at all, despite the time away and the friends she'd made. They hadn't lessened, had actually grown stronger.

And she was afraid that, maybe, they wouldn't go away.

'Cause even after all this time and all he'd done, despite all the baggage he still carried and the subtle differences recent events had made, they simply were not gone.

And she didn't think they ever would be.


	2. Tony

Title: Not Gone

Author: Tearsofamiko

Rating: K+

Disclaimer: see first chapter

Spoilers: _Cloak_

Summary: The feelings weren't gone after all.

A/N: Tony's so dark. . .^^. . .mostly because he was so angry toward the end of the episode – which makes him so much fun to play with!

* * *

He remembered the look in her dark, shadowed eyes as they hid in that closet. They'd been so close, on so many levels, barely centimeters from finally closing the distance between them. He'd wanted to risk it all then - the mission, his job, his heart - but the barest sliver of control had stayed in place. She'd driven him mad with her vague allusions to her visit to Israel, the picture he'd found in her desk not helping anything, but he'd still hoped, still wanted what he'd realized in the long months at sea to be double-sided. She was much more to him than a colleague and partner and that knowledge both thrilled and terrified him.

He'd barely managed to remember what he was supposed to be doing when they got the all-clear from McGee, but he'd done it, springing into action as if he hadn't been tempted by every recent fantasy in that closet. They'd run down that corridor, plunging ahead with their mission, intent on their goal, when the alarms went off and all hell broke loose.

That heated look in her eyes flashed through his head as they ran for cover, tried to get away. He needed to protect her, needed to have her back in this. _'Do not engage,'_ Gibbs had said and he planned on sticking to that order. He'd planned to, had every intention to, but a single instant, one mind-rattling second blew that plan away. As he stumbled backward, he saw a frantic look in her eyes, saw her half-panic before her training took over and her body reacted. Even as he tried to think through the chaos, through the pain, he knew it was hopeless and simply threw his everything into making sure she wasn't hurt.

It didn't work.

Waking up later to find her nowhere near and Gibbs looking murderous, panic filled him, rushing in like a tidal wave, sweeping away the pain and confusion. Finding her safe dispelled that hysteria, sent it back to the corners of his mind as he dealt with the newest developments in their case.

Then they were told the truth.

Abruptly, every anger and hurt and sadness from Jen's stupid undercover op – things he'd thought were long gone – flooded back, painfully accompanied by soft brown eyes wrenchingly similar to the way hers had been in that closet. He'd had happiness within his grasp with Jeanne, had known from the beginning that it wouldn't work, but was so willing to beg her to try. He'd been naïve then, playing along with Jenny's demands with an ill-fated hope that it would turn out alright. The abrupt 180 that op had taken had been a slam, knocking him off-kilter and killing every possibility he'd ever had with either woman. In the aftermath, as he'd dealt with Jeanne's ultimatum and the bureaucratic bullshit had come to life, the emotion had rushed in, leaving him bleeding and wounded, unwilling to trust the political machinations defining the director's job again. He'd chosen, instead, simply to trust what Gibbs said, hoping with child-like faith that none of that would ever happen again.

As the truth to this op came to light, those emotions boiled over, combining with both the panicked and heated warm brown of her eyes to throw him over the edge.

He hated being anyone's puppet, hated being used without his permission. He always had, but felt he had new reason to now, after Jen's megalomaniac ploys. And as the truth was told and Gibbs finally explained it all, the anger burned him.

So he focused on the anger, no longer caring that he'd thought it was gone after all this time, focused on the burn in an attempt to ignore the icy chill accompanying it. He sat in his apartment, staring into his glass of Jack - stupid bad-case habit - and brooded, unwilling to think of the 'whys' and unable not to.

He'd thought the fear of losing someone dear to him had departed along with Jeanne, had thought he had no reason to worry about what his being used could do to the people around him. But her soft brown eyes - eyes normally so strong and calm - filled with panic for him battered his denials, killed his self-assurances.

'_I'm tired of pretending,'_ he'd said, double meanings biting deeply into him. And he was, but he had to pretend, had to pretend that she wasn't that important to him, had to pretend that Gibbs' blatant violation of his trust wasn't the gut-wrenching back-stab that it was.

He had to, because the hurt of losing Jeanne was not gone, had changed in to a fear of losing Ziva and he was afraid it would never leave.


End file.
